Orange Cupcakes and Morning Deliveries
by Casimania
Summary: Hanna/{...} fanfiction for RandomDraggon's contest. Hanna wants to bake for his friends and his Zombie partner can't say no to Hanna's request to help him bake and delivery. (First time I write them but I hope I got their characterization right!)
1. Orange Cupcakes

Hanna face lit up when I agreed to help him bake cupcakes. Neither of us has ever baked cupcakes, and I'm not sure his oven is safe to use. But after I came back to his flat after my night stroll I found him in the kitchen with all the ingredients laid out in front of him, what seemed like a decent recipe and a few cupcake pans and molds he said to have 'borrowed' from Conrad. Trying wouldn't have hurt anyone (hopefully). Besides, I wasn't so good as refusing him something, especially when he pleaded (which I think he took advantage of in certain occasions. Not that I complained).

The recipe didn't seem too hard, I read it out loud as Hanna weighted and put everything in order. "We have to preheat the oven before doing anything else"

Hanna shot a worried expression towards the old rusty thing and I joined him. We pressed a few buttons and turned some knobs until it seemingly came back to life after a few tries. The light was broken and the whole oven buzzed impossibly loud. But at least it looked like it had started heating itself (for now).

Hanna was literally beaming at our little accomplishment. It was rather… heartwarming to see him so happy for a bit, after some tough cases it was nice to see him at ease. It was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, just the night before I had seen him slump on his mattress and curl up without even changing his clothes and now he was giggling about cupcakes. I didn't like seeing him like that, it just wasn't Hanna.

I rolled my sleeves up and started combining butter and sugar in the mixing bowl and started beating them. I turned around just in time to see Hanna squash an egg right on the side of a another bowl. "Oh….whoops, my hand slipped eheh" He wasn't exactly the most delicate person ever, in spite of his frail appearance (never judge a book by its cover, right?)

He tried again to crack the eggs open shaky hands and a furrowed brow and let out a little victory scream after he succeeded and grinned at me "I'm a master chef! Aren't I Hibiki?"

"Of course Hanna." I could only shake my head and smile back at him as he poured the eggs one at a time in my bowl as I kept mixing and adding some vanilla. "Could you start mixing the dry ingredients?"

"Sure man!" He start dutifully mixing salt, baking powder and flower inevitable got _everywhere_ after Hanna sneezed right on the opened flour bag. "Crap I'm sor- Hahahahah! Oh my god Renshu you have flour everywhere!"

I ran a hand through my hair only to find flour. How did it even get that high? I looked down at him, he had gotten the worse of it. There wasn't an inch of his face or head that wasn't covered in flour. Since the floor and counter where already messy I just bent down and blew it all away from his face, he patted my shirt a few times as I ran a hand through his hair (I really tried hard not to linger too long. I loved that mess of curls, but this wasn't really the moment to stop and appreciate it.). He got on his tip toes and kissed my chin, I couldn't resist and bent down to give a slight peck at his lips (Which he answered to with a squeak and giggle). They tasted strange. Probably the flour, I wasn't really good at telling flavors apart. The perks of being (un)dead I guess.

We put together the two bowls and started adding some orange juice and zest while whipping everything (Hanna had insisted in making all the cupcake orange). We went to check the oven, it had miraculously kept working the whole time and had reached a reasonable temperature. Hanna took a few spoons from out of a drawer and we started pouring all of the mix in the molds.

Now came the hard part, not burning everything. Which we did. In our defense it was hard to check the baking process with only the light from Hanna's phone. Luckily we had enough mix to make more cupcakes after the first batch inevitably burned. And managed to check with toothpicks in time if they were cooked or not. The second one was definitely better, and Hanna gave me the thumbs up after trying a cupcake.

While we left them to cool off we worked on the icing. This time we this mess up as much. We spilled a bit of orange juice but it was quickly wiped off (we didn't really need another ant invasion) and had to add an additional tablespoon when the frosting came out too thick.

"Shirong can you pass me the piping bag?" I dig between the discarded utensils and found the bag in question, which looked rather new and devoid of dust or holes.

"Another thing 'borrowed' from Conrad?" Hanna puffed his cheeks and started stuffing the frosting into the bag

"Hey! It's not like he needs them anymore! Who cares if I keep them a bit longer than intended?" Well he did have a point, kind of.

I helped him close the back of the piping bag and he turned around and stuck out his tongue at me while trying to put the icing on one of the burnt cupcakes to test out his work. "And it's actually gift from Toni you distrustful excuse of a partner! Now gimme a hand."

"You know Hanna." I scooped up some of the icing left in the bowl with my index finger and booped Hanna's nose with it soliciting a surprised yelp from him. "Orange looks very good on you."

"But never as much as it looks on YOU!" I may have deserved a tiny bit Hanna squeezing part of the icing right in my face. But that didn't stop me from lifting him under my arm and squashing the only frosted cupcake in his face. He protested and rubbed more of that sticky mess in my face.

Our little battle was interrupted when I slipped on a bit of the frosting we 'accidentally' threw on the ground and almost dropped Hanna. I set him down as he regained his breath. He had been howling with laughter the whole time and now his cheeks and nose were tinted a light shade of red. I felt a knot in my stomach and decided in that exact moment I wouldn't have allowed anything to hurt him anymore as best as I could. It was a weak promise but the best I could do for him. He deserved to always have a smile plastered on his face.

He calmed down a bit and we finished frosting the cupcakes (with way less cream that we intended too, but accident happens). They looked and smelled nice, and tasted pretty ok too according to Hanna.

"So, now what you want to do with them, they're sure a lot." There was enough to feed a family of five. And the only one with a working digestive system here was Hanna.

"Giving it away to our friends no? I'm sure they'll love them!" We packaged them as best as we could and got a change of clothes. We had sticky frosting and flour everywhere.

We grabbed the packages (I didn't know what smelled more of orange, vanilla and butter in that moment, us or the cupcakes) and set out on the street.


	2. Morning Deliveries

First stop: Worth's clinic.

We found him sleeping at his desk, Hanna tried to wake him up but he just swatted him away and kept snoring, he tried to poke Worth again but nothing, he cursed under his breath and kept sleeping.

Lamont appeared behind us with a chuckled that made Hanna jump out of his skin "Eheheh, I would try to wake him up. It's been a night full of injured clients. He's been out cold for a few hours. I've been cleaning up the mess he left behind." Then this was why the walls of the clinics weren't literally covered in blood. I'd always wondered how someone like Worth managed to keep the clinic safe enough to actually save people's lives. Last time he had seen him swiping the floor he had just swiped everything under a carpet and then proceeded to smoke and dump ash over the spot he had just 'cleaned'.

"Geez we wanted to give him breakfast. Ah well, we'll leave it to you with yours!" He shoved two of the small packages into Lamont's hands.

He picked inside one of them "Are those cupcakes? Aw guys you're great." He grinned at me and ruffled Hanna's hair, who puffed his cheeks and glared at Lamont. "Thanks kiddo."

"Laaaaamont don't call me like that. And you can withhold them from Worth if he acts like an ass."

He gave us a wink "Heheh roger to that Hanna. See ya around then." We waved at him and set out to our next 'victims': Conrad and Veser.

We found an underwear clad Veser answering at the door (Conrad accepted keeping him around for another while. No one really felt like leaving him alone on his own and Conrad was the only one with enough space to host him). "Sup Peas, Hanna!" _Peas_? I raised an eyebrow at him but he just grinned and winked back at me. Sometimes I could almost understand Conrad's constant exasperation with the kid.

Hanna hopped in and handed him other two packets. "Cupcakes! For breakfast!"

Veser sniffed at them and whistled. "Awesome, I was just dying to eat something. Nosferatu here never lets me buy the good stuff. Something about cholesterol and high blood pressure."

"Bout that, where's Connie? I wanted to say hi!" Veser didn't even have the occasion to open his mouth to answer Hanna that Connie in question screamed out from his room.

"IT'S CONRAD, NOT CONNIE. NEITHER CONMAN. IT'S CONRad." He poked his head out of his room (the binds were open in the living room) and squinted at us.

"Now please let me sleep I spent the whole night being dragged in dark alleys but that one eyed menace that is Casimiro and his fucking babysitter only to come back home to Vesere getting crumbles all over my floor. Please and thanks." He stomped right back in the dark room.

"Uh…." Hanna blinked and looked at Veser who shrugged. "Don't look at me. He's always like that. Gets his boxers in a knot over nothing."

"Well uh. Then see ya later." We headed for the door but Hanna spunk around and snapped his fingers. "Oooh Ves! I gave you an extra packet. Uhm, if you want you can give it to Ples. He doesn't seem to mind you."

Veser seemed to reflect about it for a minute. But then gave us the thumbs up. "No prob, I'll go check on the old man and bring him breakfast." He headed to close the binds and the curtain and we all waved off Conrad. Who grumbled something about dirty shoes on his clean floor.

We departed from Veser soon after as he headed to Ple's house.

"And at last we're going to Toni and Jacob. She said she would have been with him at the Rabbit Hole this morning."

"Jacob?" The name didn't ring any bells.

"Uhm, huge ass man that keeps my post safe and sneaks up behind everyone?" He raised his arms into the hair to mimic someone really big and tried to scowl.

"Oh, the bartender, right." Hanna seemed to spend a lot of time at his bar. I don't know exactly what sort of relationship he has with Hanna. I just know that he delivers him certain cases requests and let us hang in his bar so Hanna can peep around and find more cases. (Until Hanna starts acting a bit too weird a scares people. Than the barten- Jacob, usually lifts him with an hand and escorts him out. Which happens often.)

Hanna slid one of his arm around mine and I adjusted my pace to his own so we walked for a while close to each other. He seemed to be really enjoying himself. I think he didn't have a close group of friends (apart from Lamont and Worth) in a long time. It made me feel strange to know that I was partially responsible for Hanna's happiness. It made me feel kind of…. happy myself. It was weird, I had spent years walking without a destination and feeling next to nothing.

Then came Hanna and I finally had a purpose (Aid Hanna, keep him safe, make him happy, protect our friends) and I slowly started feeling again. I notice the changes day after day. Things I feel that I don't exactly know how to name at first or how to express later. But Hanna is patient, he's always been. And he can read clues pretty well.

We reached the Down The Rabbit Hole and Hanna gave my arm one last squeeze before sliding in. We were greeted with screaming and flying dart that fell on the ground inches from us almost hitting Hanna's foot.

"WHAT THE FUck what was that!" Hanna picked the dart from the ground and handed it to a mortified looking Toni that dashed towards us.

"Oh my gosh Hanna I'm so sorry! I was trying to play darts with Casimiro but he's just _horrible_ at it!" Said man horrible terrible at darts came into our field of vision with his shirt sleeves rolled up and looking quite pissed.

"Well try aiming with ONE EYE THEN LETS SEE WHO SUCKS AT DARTS." He retrieved the dart and seemed to only now notice us, Hanna especially . "Hey pipsqueak, fancy meetin' you here." Hanna froze and shrunk beside me as Casimiro snweered at him I got between them. I didn't have to protect Hanna from anything as Finas raised his voice from his place near the counter "Toni!"

She grinned and with a little jump slapped Casimiro across the head and elbowed him in the ribs when he bend down. "Ouch! What the fuck is up with you two?" The Italian vampire's attention was averted from us and he stomped over from where his friends was sitting talking to Jacob.

We immediately whipped our heads around with a questioning stare directed at Toni who just winked at us. "Finas gave me permission to hit Casimiro when he acts like an ass." From what we had gathered Casimiro (and Finas trailing after him) spent a lot of time antagonizing Conrad, and Toni always took Conrad's parts and hanged with them and Veser to "help Conrad stand for himself". It mostly ended up in heated poker games between Casimiro and Toni tough.

"They got stuck here in the morning, Jacob will let them hang in the back room when it's opening time and he has to open all the windows." The scowling bartender didn't seem like the type of guy to like shady vampires hanging in his back room but Finas and Casimiro didn't seem the type of guys an average human would have argued with.

Hanna seemed to relax a tiny bit. I knew there was something that bothered him about Casimiro, he had already grumbled something about 'calling me rotten, hollow and curse when he's the one with the curse burned in his eye' and Finas's presence didn't really put anyone at ease when Cas was around as we all knew that as much as he looked neutral he was always siding with Casimiro, even in his silence or scolding of the Italian. Very much like me, as he commented once. And I can only find myself to agree. I can't think of an occasion where I wouldn't side with Hanna. With may or may not have been a good thing.

"Er- ok then. Well,I came here to give you breakfast! It's cupcakes!" Hanna gave her a toothy grin and she giggled and gave one hug to each of them. Sometimes Hanna's good spirits where contagious.

I handed her the little packet. "We made them this morning."

"Aw guys. What would I do without you two!"

"Eehh you wouldn't get treats like these! I have a bag for Jacob too, it's the last one!" We followed Hanna who trotted in front of the counter and handed him the bag.

"Uuuh, this is for that couple I made run away because I scared them." Jacob's frown deepened. "….And that spirit I accidentally unleashed at the bar last week…" Hanna shrunk back a bit "….And that kobold I let in the bar to drink all of your alcohol"

Casimiro snickered but got elbowed in the ribs by Finas and Toni at the same time and proceeded cross his arms over his chest and pout.

Jacob patted Hanna's check, which made him pale and me almost reach for him. The palm of his hand was bigger than Hanna's face and we got both afraid he was getting a slap across the face. "Excuses and gift appreciated but try not to weird out anyone else ok?" And he looked at me in the eyes too. I think I had just been appointed the second person he would have gotten angry at in case Hanna screwed up. Great.

We exchanged a few more words with Toni, greeted politely Finas, witnessed Casimiro get hit another few times by Finas and Toni. And them said goodbye to all of them and went on our way home.

Hanna immediately grabbed my hand and I squeezed it gently. He started humming to himself and I recognized the song, immediately joining him. I kept humming with his as he stopped only to giggle once in a while until we reached our flat.

As soon as he closed the door behind us he started dancing around him so I smiled and started singing out loud "_Or so I've dreamed, since I met you, what secrets do you hide? ~_"

He kept grabbed my hands and I made him swirl a few times around the room as he singed with me "_All I want~ Is to know your name~ and whisper it in your ear~ with your arms around my neck~_"

We ended up running into a table remained for a few minute there, Hanna's arms secured around my waist and my own on his shoulders. I listened to his breath calm down against my chest and slowly started rubbing his back. He buried his face harder into my chest and I heard his breath hick. "I'm so glad I met you and the others Isagani." He looked at me and licked his lips. "Es-especially you…."

I bent slightly down and grabbed his chin turning his face upwards. "I'm glad I met you too Hanna." I scooped him in my arms and kissed him. He tangled his hands in my hair and I sighed in the kiss.

I definitely loved Hanna Falks Cross.

And we were definitely going to bake something else as soon as possible.


End file.
